


Built with a heart, broken from the start

by orochisInebriation (asterCrash)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe, F/F, Homelessness, Homestuck Kidswap, Past Abuse, Rose Strider - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 19:32:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6623386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asterCrash/pseuds/orochisInebriation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wayward Rose Strider, fleeing her abusive past and the people who haunt it, is passing through the Adirondacks, trying to steal enough to stay alive as winter descends.</p><p>Out in the woods, she finds a house that might have been home, in a different life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Built with a heart, broken from the start

“That drawer’s mostly just underwear. If you’re after jewellery it’s two drawers down.”

The young woman must jump a foot in the air at the sound of your voice. Her head swivels round like an owl’s inside her hoodie and you catch a glimpse of her eyes across the room, brilliant and bright, yet oh-so-startled. They’re quite nice eyes. She lowers a lacey black thing you never have the occasion to wear back into the drawer without breaking eye contact. You can see her running the mental calculations of how quickly she can get out of here, whether you’ve likely called the police and whether this break and enter is about to become a murder.

“It’s alright, don’t be scared, I’m not weird I promise.” Well that last part is a lie, but you were honest about the first two. You guess it is pretty weird for someone to install a state-of-the-art security system only to cancel the silent alarm the first time she actually has someone break in. You tell yourself it was just because it was cold outside and you didn’t want your would-be thief left out in the snow. Her lips still look blue with winter’s chill, the mountains can be a bitch like that.

“Sorry,” she says, impeccable manners for a thief. Something in the waver of her voice still says that she will bite and kick and scream if you try to stop her from leaving. She turns around to face you slowly, as if you were the cornered animal in the room. You try to keep your body language relaxed, leaning against the door frame cuts off her escape but hopefully doesn’t make you look like you’re about to charge her.

“Seriously, it’s fine, take whatever. I don’t own anything I can’t replace.” Guilt flushes across her face but she doesn’t let her guard down or move her eyes from yours. She’s young, but you don’t think inexperienced. She might have tripped the perimeter alarm but she dodged every camera on her way in here and picked the lock on your back door in two minutes flat. She must have awfully clever hands to work so well in this cold. You appraise her, as best you can, she’s still huddled in on herself and the ill-fitting orange jumper (interesting choice for a thief) conceals most of her figure. Her clothes look lived in, jeans showing plenty of wear and some less than fashionable tears, shoes practically falling to pieces. This girl should definitely not be going back out in the cold.

She withdraws one of your necklaces from her hoodie, the pearl one you had made a while back to piss one of your coworkers off. It looks like an heirloom because you had it custom crafted to look exactly like the one Jane wears all the time. The one she could never stop talking about inheriting from her grandmother. It was petty, sure, but getting Jane’s goat is half the reason you turn up to work anymore. And it’s her own fault for talking about her family so often.

“Keep it, I never wear the thing.” She doesn’t argue, just stuffs it back into her pocket. She’s looking a bit anxious to get going, which is fair, you can’t imagine this is the kind of exchange she’s hoping for when she breaks in somewhere. “I was about to make dinner, can I give you a meal before you leave?” Her brow lowers. “No funny business, I promise. I just don’t want it getting out that I treat houseguests poorly, you understand? Bad for my rep.”

She quirks an eyebrow at you, a studied, perfected motion. “Well, if it’s a favour to you then.”

You grin for her and lift up off the door frame. “Sure thing, kitchen’s through here.” She follows you at a cautious distance as you lead the way through the house. You chatter at her about what you were thinking of making, the weather, just make small talk mostly. She doesn’t really provide much in the way of conversation but you’ve been starved of it lately at you relish the little grunts and quips she makes in your direction. You maybe get a bit carried away talking as you pass through the entrance hall/living room/open plan kitchen. Ninety percent of your electricity bill seems to go into keeping this one room warm, you tell her, but it’s worth it to have the grand open plan house you always dreamed of when you were a kid. She’s a good sport, listening to everything you spout off thoughtfully, staying companionably quiet. Only when you get to the kitchen and think to ask her favourite food do you turn around to see the front door open and the house empty.

 

* * *

 

You are now Rose Strider and your feet are _cold_.

Fresh snow crunches under your shoes as you slide quickly between the trees, keeping an eye out for any cameras you didn’t spot on your way in and keeping your hood up. Your meagre take rattles in the pockets of your jumper, pretty much just what was lying on top of the chest of drawers. You feel the pearls of the necklace rolling between your thumb and forefinger, trying to keep your hands warm, trying to keep your fingers moving. You pick up the pace, trying to get away from the house out in the woods. As much as you’d like to take its resident at her word, you’ve seen a little too much of the human race to trust a stranger. The police are probably on their way over now, if she hadn’t called them before she tried to corner you then she definitely would have as soon as she realised you didn’t like your odds of winding up chained to a radiator. All kinds of freaks live this far out of civilisation, and you’ve seen enough shit looting through their garbage to know the wealthier ones are just as scary as the poor ones. You take from both in equal measure, because when you’ve got nothing but the clothes on your back everyone seems a greedy miser in comparison.

But she had offered hadn’t she?

You don’t do anything as embarrassing as trying not to think about her. Better to preserve the character details for later, might be able to make something out of her. That curling blonde hair, hips and shoulders like she’d been carved from marble, and the way she grinned so wide when you said you’d stay for dinner. When was the last time anyone seemed so happy to have you around? You don’t flatter yourself by assuming she actually wanted you to stay, but it was nice to have someone pretend for a change. Too many people had told you to leave, to go away, to get out of their sight. The thought of having somewhere to go, somewhere that people would be at least hospitable…

She _had_ offered.

 

* * *

 

You are Roxy Lalonde and you’re getting used to heartbreak.

You’re getting too old to be sitting on the kitchen bench ruining your appetite with chocolate but honestly some nights call for it. What the hell is wrong with you that you thought she would stick around? That you’d get to play the happy host and make her a nice meal and convince her to stay in the spare room until it stopped snowing at the least? Even if the situation hadn’t made you out to be such a creep why would she even want to? Sometimes you think people can see your thoughts. That they take one look at you and they know that you’re a bad person. They see the warning lit up in neon pink printing out a list of your flaws and telling them to run away.

Fuck, you’re crying.

Cold air blows in through the front door and you can’t even bring yourself to care. If she’d rather freeze than spend another minute with you then you might as well freeze too.

 

* * *

 

The door is still open when you walk up her front steps, what little snow had managed to build up silencing your approach. The closer you get the more you can hear her sobbing. It sends up red flags, memories of a time when someone showing you emotional vulnerability meant that pain was coming and it was coming fast. You press forward. Your bullshit ruined the life you left behind, it will not ruin your present. You step forward into the light.

She’s sitting on her kitchen bench, face in her hands, elbows resting on her knees. She’s still taller than you, and sitting on the bench is lifting her up, but she looks… small. She’d seemed to have such confidence a few minutes ago, but you’re well aware of how easy it is to hide your weakness when you’re used to getting hurt. You clear your throat to announce your presence and she looks up from her palms to see you. Her eyeliner is a little smudged in the corners of her eyes, brilliant and bright, yet oh-so-startled. You make a very slow gesture of turning your back to her and closing the front door. If this is going to get ugly then it might as well be a warm kind of ugly.

“I have decided,” you begin, throat a little raspy from the cold and too long without much of a conversation. “That I would like to take you up on your offer of dinner, if it’s still on the table.”

She looks at you for a second, searching, imploring some kind of reason. Checking, you think, to see if this is some cruel kind of joke. It’s not. “Yeah,” she gives out a laugh or maybe a sob. “Yeah, dinner’s still on. I mean, I was going to suggest eating on the couches but we can do it on the table if you want.”

You laugh at her joke, it’s the funniest thing you’ve heard since a fence tried to give you fifteen bucks for a twenty-four carat necklace. “Well, we might save doing it on the table for a second date. I’m happy to eat on the couches.” She giggles a bit at your flirting and christ she must be twice your age but she looks so _happy_ to hear you joking with her. “I really don’t know how to express a preference considering the circumstances, wherever is fine as long as it’s indoors.”

“And here I was hoping I’d finally get a use out of that patio furniture,” she gives a mock sigh of dismay before flashing you another grin. “Would you come help me in the kitchen?”

Your resolve wavers for a moment. Kitchens are where the pointy things are kept, you well remember. The door is still so close behind you, tempting you with the promise of escape, of getting away from people. You choke down on the memories and convince yourself that this woman doesn’t seem like the kind to fill a fridge with swords as a joke.

Seeing your hesitation, the woman interrupts. “Actually, y’know what? I got this, you just pick a seat and I’ll bring you some stuff. Any allergies?”

“None that I know of,” you manage to stutter it out, taken aback a bit by the thoughtless accommodation.

“Okay, how about any favourite foods?” She’s already whirling around the kitchen, firing up some kind of sandwich iron and spreading a conserve over some cheese.

“None that I know of.” It feels more sad admission than snarky comeback. She pauses her fiddling a moment to make eye contact, as if she could discern a life of deprivation with a glance. Clearly she sees the scope of the task and decides to return to the meal instead.

You don’t blame her, it’s not like she can make up for a lifetime of missed meals in one night.

 

* * *

 

You have to feed this girl everything you know how to make and you need to do it now.

You get the croque-monsieur going in the sandwich press (gruyere cheese with smoked salmon in place of ham and just a dollop of fruit jam for some extra sweetness) and turn back to the chopping board to get working on the chicken. You shouldn’t cut the strips quite so chunky but god she looks so skinny you can’t help yourself. You’ll have plenty of time, you think as you roll the pieces through some egg whites before dumping them in breadcrumbs, plenty of time for these to cook to crispy perfection while you get some other stuff going. As soon as they’re skewered with onion, capsicum (covered with a little cayenne for extra flavour, you know it’s a bit over the top and you’re sort of missing a theme here but honestly she just needs everything in her right now) and in the oven to bake away you’re flying back to the fridge for last night’s pasta and some carrots and maybe a little celery and—

 

* * *

 

She is a whirlwind. She is fury. She is a human tornado of culinary excellence. You wish you could write with as much passion as this woman puts into positioning colourful toothpicks into crusty pieces of bread before handing them to you to try. You can’t help but think through the performance that she maybe only knows how to prepare hors d’oeuvres and is compensating by making all the hors d'oeuvres ever devised at once. She plates up most of them beautifully, even though there’s only about four of each and slides them across the kitchen counter between you. Some of them she doesn’t even wait to plate up, simply pressing free delicious food into your hands without skipping a beat. You try to keep up with the flow of conversation but your mouth is full more often than not, she keeps up the chatter for both of you, naming ingredients left and right, telling you what she’s doing, where she’s cheating recipes and what should be considered a sinful treat and what is lean and healthy.

“How did you learn to make all this?” You blurt out between mouthfuls of what she assures you is “the best fucking salmon you will find in North America.”

She pauses in the middle of drizzling some kind of rich brown sauce over the fried chicken skewers (wait, is fried the right term? She put them in the oven, doesn’t that mean they’re baked? They look like KFC, you don’t know if they have a name, fuck, you don’t know anything about food) and looks up at you. You can hardly tell she’d been crying before but there’s something in her eyes that says tears aren’t an infrequent part of her life. “When I first got this house, I had all these plans to throw big dinner parties and everything. Got a whole bunch of books on home catering, got through all the chapters on starters before I realised nobody really wanted to come round. So yeah, I’m really good at little things like these but don’t ask me to make a roast, lol.”

She’s either in her late thirties or early forties and she speaks in internet abbreviations. She wanted to have parties badly enough to research how to throw them before figuring out you needed guests to have a good party. You must have found a kindred spirit if she’s truly that lonely.

“I used to have pretend tea parties a lot when I was little.” You don’t know why you’re volunteering. “Not even that little, I think I still did it when I was maybe twelve or thirteen? My older brother had a lot of puppets around the house so I was never short of guests. I’d imagine all the gossip they’d tell, and practice the social niceties I saw on TV.”

“Ha, I always skipped that part when I would imagine. The other foster kids would never play along with the whole party set up so I just imagined everyone having lots to eat and thanking me for it. I was the only kid who spent her allowance on chocolate and it was always so I’d have a stockpile for when there was no food in the house. I hated seeing the other kids go hungry, so I thought the chocolate might cheer them up a bit, even if it wasn’t very filling. ‘Course, that just made me an easy target to steal from since everyone knew where I kept the stuff and figured since I shared it so easily they could take it any— oh shit, no, no that wasn’t directed at you, seriously. Shit, sorry, no, I—”

“It’s fine.” You cut her off before she can do herself an injury with the cheese grater still caught in her hand as she tries to make placating gestures. “I’m aware that breaking into people’s houses and taking their jewellery is what academics would call ‘a dick move’.”

She gives you this sad kind of nod, or perhaps just nods to herself, and goes back to her preparations. “I don’t want to ask why you’re down to stealing, that’s obviously never going to have a fun answer, but do you have some kind of game plan? We’re a long way from fuck all out here so I can’t imagine you were just wandering past.” She finishes up grating a small plate of cheese and moves on to slicing zucchini. Her wrists are thin, you notice, as she bounces the knife up and down in quick, elegant motions. For someone who knows how to cook so well she’s certainly bony.

“I was hoping to find an empty house to squat in,” you don’t see much point in keeping your motivations to yourself here, she’s probably already discerned that you’re hungry and cold and would like a place to sleep where nobody’s going to paw at you during the night. “Turns out most of these places are occupied more often than I’d anticipated. Stealing’s kind of a dead end when every fence is out to rip you off. I had to get rid of this watch, a classic late eighties kind of time piece, I want to say Swiss-made but the gear teeth screamed German, anyway it was fancy is the point, and this fence, this _asshole_ insisted he could get five like it from a friend on Canal street. Now I don’t want to be too derogatory of the local schools but if that’s the quality of young man they’re churning out, clearly the teachers are slacking off.”

“Sounds like you know a fair bit about jewellery appraisal, did you ever consider doing it for work?” She gives you this sly look, the kind that people give you when they think they’re being sneaky. You know sneaky, and this is an offense to the very idea of sneakiness.

“Yes, but it’s awful hard to look nice for job interviews when you’ve been sleeping in the only set of clothes you own. Jewellers tend to prefer somewhat more refined looking individuals.” You neglect to mention your brief and disastrous horology apprenticeship to a certain doctor, now very hopefully deceased.

“Okay, well, since you’re already robbing me and stuff, I think I have like an old suit that might fit you, do you want to try it on after dinner and see if you want to take it with you?”

“Ah but you see now you’ve trapped us in a lexical dilemma. How can I steal from you what you’re giving willingly?”

“You’re right that is a tough one, how about instead of stealing it, you just accept it as a gift from a valued friend.”

“Seems a little presumptuous of me, assuming that it is in fact a gift and not some kind of excuse to get my trousers off in your house.”

“Babe, trust me I wouldn’t need an excuse. Sorry, that was dumb, you can probably tell how bad I am at this stuff. I just want you to have a shot, you know? I got a friend a few towns over runs a jewellery shop, she’s old and could probably do with a young thing like you helping out. Let me get you an interview with her and see if you’re a fit?”

“I appreciate the offer, but I’m not your fixer upper.”

“It’s not like a weird pity case thing, like I said you sound good at this stuff and my pal needs the help.”

“I’m not going to be—”

“Stay the night. Please. I’ve got a spare room, there’s a lock on the door, I won’t bother you, just please, please stay the night. I don’t know how I’d live with myself if I was honestly such shitty company that you felt you had to leave.”

She watches you with a kind of horror as you struggle with your contrarian nature. You want to turn her down purely because of the emotional, manipulative appeal to your vastly depleted sense of empathy. As candid as she’s been with you, you perceive a depth to her that goes unseen, hidden. There are micro-expressions around her eyes that show the subtlety of her inner machinations, they speak of a brain that moves much faster than anyone ever thinks at first glance. She’s beautiful, and it’s not so much a realisation as it is the irrefutable proof of an obvious hypothesis. She is gravity. She is the universal constant. She’s hot and she probably doesn’t know it.

And she wants you to stay.

You step around the counter and into her kitchen, getting closer, taking smooth, practiced steps. The effect is kind of ruined by your shoes squelching with snowmelt. “Do you want to kiss me?” You ask her but you’re not sure you want the answer to be yes.

“I want you to feel _safe_ ,” you stare into her depths and don’t see a liar. “I’m not going to put anything else before that.”

“I’d like a straight answer,” you step in closer, firmly inside her personal space.

“I don’t even know your name,” she doesn’t retreat from you.

“Please,” you’re close enough to taste her breath, standing up to your full height and craning your neck.

“I don’t want you to leave,” her eyes close, seemingly of their own bidding, and she tilts her head to the side. Her expression is a sad kind of pained, torn between what she wants for you and what she needs for herself. Pressed up right against the threshold of what she believes is the right thing to do, she wants you too much to step away.

You cross the threshold for her.

Her lips are soft, but dry. They give strangely under your own, like tissue paper pressed in by insistent fingers. She doesn’t move her hands to hold you, still looking at any second like she can’t help but continue, like she’s trapped in your orbit. You’ve never felt as powerful in a kiss before and you can’t remember any time you’ve wanted as badly as you do now.

String music swells within you and you feel like a movie character, a part of you unable to suspend disbelief that you could have found someone who makes you feel this way. You’re a child again with her first crush, terrified and uncertain of new feelings. Fabric bunches under your fingers as you hold on to her for dear life. Her response is to gingerly lay a hand on your shoulder, inviting, not pushing, tentative and frightened herself. You feel the contained electricity within her, as she begs herself to deepen the kiss but holds back for you. She holds back for you.

You deepen the kiss.

Her hand tightens on your shoulder and you _feel_ her moan before you hear it. You bring a hand up to brush through her hair, curling around past her ear and holding her by the back of her neck, pulling her into you. You feel a sense of trespass that you’ve never felt before, like you are getting away with something fundamentally wrong, something that the world marked off clearly as something Rose Strider was not allowed to have. She melts in your hands every time you touch her, and just from the contact you start to get a sense of how truly lonely she really is.

“Stop, stop, please.” She’s breaking away, pushing you back and your heart makes a sick lurch forward in your chest, like the beginning of a rollercoaster’s descent. “Please, I don’t want to take advantage of you like this.”

“My name is Rose.”

It’s all you need to say, she whines in the back of her throat and falls back into your kiss, sloppy, uncaring. “R—roxy,” she stutters up against your mouth. “Call me Roxy”.

You tighten your grip on her waist but pull back from the kiss to speak, “I’m not sure about staying the night just yet, but would it be alright if I take a shower before making my mind up?”

 

* * *

 

And so here you are, forty-two fucking years old and sitting outside your own bathroom while a twenty something (Christ, she better be over twenty one) sings beautiful music in your shower. You have maxed out your creepometer. You check your phone for news reported about meteors raining down or oceans rising of some kind of doomsday that could justify exactly what you’re doing here but nope, looks like all systems normal and old lady Roxy Lalonde is being a creep.

She told you to wait out here for her, so you did. It doesn’t make it feel any less creepy to be here, almost voyeuristically listening to an entire discography of beautiful homeless girl in the shower. You try your best not to think about the images connecting to those sounds, how the rush of water spattering on the shower floor must have coursed its way across the supple contours of her body. Her skin would be so soft in your hands, as you stood behind her, sharing the stream of water. You could place kisses up her neck and whisper in ear that she could stay here, that she was safe, that you would take care of her. Her breasts would be soft and taught in your hands, her body fitting into yours so readily, like she was made for you to hold her. She’d sing your name as your hands wandered lower, opening, begging you to give her anything she asked for.

“Ro~xy,” she croons from inside the bathroom, the sound of running water now silent.

You bang your head on the wall behind you jolting out of your fantasy and swear under your breath. “Yes, Rose? What can I do for you?”

“Could you come inside and help me out for a moment?”

You briefly forget how to breathe. You lose your balance in three different directions trying to stand up, basic composure having apparently deserted you entirely. You do your best to smooth down your outfit before reaching out for the door to the bathroom.

Darkness greets you inside, Rose must have turned the lights off at some point. Your eyes strain for a moment as you make out the flames of your candles circling the bath tub. Rose is reclining inside, covered entirely in bubbles. The room smells like five kinds of lavender and she looks like a goddess laying back on her altar. Wordlessly, you kneel beside the tub and prepare to worship, however she sees fit.

“You don’t have to look at me like that, you know,” she wears a sardonic grin like jewellery.

“Like what?”

“Like a drowning man looks at a straw,” she chuckles. “As you can see I’m offering you no respite from the threat of drowning.” It’s a shallow tub, the only place she could conceivably find enough water to drown you in would be shoving you head-first between her legs. You’re sure it’s not what she meant to imply but your imagination has a way of running off with your better wits. “Could I ask you to wash my hair, Roxy? There’s not enough water in here for me to do it myself.”

You hear yourself say “sure,” but you hardly believe it’s you. That this is a thing that’s happening to you. Rose sits forward in the tub, giving you an amazing view of her back and holy shit, no, no, what the fuck, that is not okay.

“I don’t really want to talk about those right now, Roxy, I promise it’s not an ongoing issue.”

You do your best to keep your breath even, to not react, to not pay any attention to the motherfucking _abundance_ of scars on this girl’s back. What the fuck even made these? _Who_ the fuck even made these? No, no, she asked you to ignore it and you’re going to, because that’s polite and you are an exceptional host. Your hands still tremble as you pour a dollop of your regular shampoo into her hair, cursing yourself that you don’t have anything fancier to offer. She sits still while you lather, hands running through her damp locks, trying to give her something resembling a scalp massage as you go.

“It’s going to sound like the silliest thing in the world, but I don’t know if I can be vulnerable anywhere else than a bathtub,” she talks as if she’s speaking to herself, trying to make sense of something that has no sense to it. “Bath time was _safe_ in a way that nothing else was. It was the only place I could let my guard down.”

You do your best to make sympathetic noises but you’re not sure you have any idea what kind of situation could breed that attitude. You tilt her head back towards you, her throat opened so invitingly and a smile on her face, a god damned _smile_. Your heart does backflips. You maybe take longer than you need to rinsing her hair, bringing water up slowly in your cupped hands to pour over her, massaging through her hair to get the last of the soap out. You finish up with a leave-in conditioner that smells of lilac, taking more care than is strictly necessary to ensure every inch of her newly silky hair runs through your fingers.

“Thank you for doing this for me,” Rose speaks with a dreamy voice (though what about her isn’t dreamy?) You’ve well and truly passed the point where you could claim to be doing anything to her hair other than petting it. “It’s been so long since anyone was anything other than awful to me, I’d almost forgotten there were kind people in the world.”

You snort a bit. You don’t feel kind, you feel selfish. You have this amazing girl in your hands and she is letting you spoil her. “You meet any of them kind people out there you let me know, it’s been a while since I found one in the wild.”

She giggles, and if you’ve both led depressing lives at least you have that in common. “What, I don’t count?”

“I’m not fond of understatement.”

She turns her head to give you the most sardonic eyeroll you’ve ever seen a person muster. You want to kiss her again, but you hold back. She said bath time was her safe space and you’re going to respect that. Nothing happens in this room unless she asks for it.

“Since you’ve been so indulgent up until now, I don’t suppose I could trouble you for a backrub while you’re back there?”

“Yes ma’am,” you say, dipping your hands down to her shoulders. “Here at Château Lalonde, we pride ourselves on first class service.” You set your thumbs on the muscles of her shoulder blades and lean in close to her ear to pur. “How firm would madam like her massage?”

She grins and does this amazing throaty chuckle, tilting her head to get just that much closer to your ear, “just fuck me up, Roxy.”

“Right away, mademoiselle,” you do your best to come off sultry, but you think you hit dorky along the way. Ah well, she seems to like dorky just fine. You press in with your thumbs, rubbing small circles at first then getting larger, pressing harder into her back. You feel your way over her muscles, one small spot at a time, trying your best to put the scars out of your mind even as you trace over them to touch her. You unwind every taught muscle, you break apart every knot. You wonder how well you could imagine her life just from the feel of the wear and tear you’re undoing. Was this particular kink from sleeping on bare concrete? Would her lower back feel so stretched out if she’d had someone around to correct her posture when she was younger? You feel the pattern of muscles on her right side that makes you think of some kind of swordsman, which might explain the scars, but the pattern is mirrored on her left flank as well. Perhaps she’s ambidextrous? Your little runaway street samurai certainly has the marks of someone accustomed to violence, though you do your best to push out the thoughts of when these scars were open and bleeding. Was there no one to patch her up? To kiss her wounds better? Who was there to take care of this girl? She mentioned an older brother, but not any kind of parents. Not a mother.

“Roxy? Are you alright? I notice my free massage seems to have ended.”

“Hmm? Oh, sorry, I zoned out,” you try to brush it off, to pretend you weren’t thinking about the very thing she told you not to. She’s too smart to buy your lie, you’re certain. “Did I miss anywhere?”

“Your hands were everywhere I needed them, Roxy,” she grins over her shoulder at you and your heart does this dorky flutter that you haven’t felt since high school. “May I have some privacy while I towel off?”

 

* * *

 

You know you’re keeping her waiting, but how often are you going to get a chance to do this again? Your scavenged supplies spread out on the bathroom counter you run a mental checklist. Hair dry? Check. Teeth brushed with stolen tooth brush? Check. Stolen eyeliner applied? Check. Stolen black lipstick looking delicious? Check. One sexy Strider? Double check. Clothes? Unchecked.

“Roxy,” you open the bathroom door to find her curled up on the floor with her back against the wall. She’s reading something on her phone, but whatever it is must seem like the least important thing in the world next to you because it falls straight out of her hand on onto the carpeted floor beneath. “I’d very much like you to take me to bed now.”

She’s speechless as she scrambles to her feet. You press her back against the wall of her own home and grind your naked body up against hers. She opens her mouth to try to say something but nothing comes up. You stare up at her, parting her legs with your thigh and pressing even more of your weight into her. “I’m cold, Roxy, aren’t you going to take me to bed? Aren’t you going to warm me up?” You put on your best breathy sexpot voice as you tease her, leaning in to press little bites into the skin of her neck.

Her arms come around your waist and you score yourself a point that you’ve finally pushed past her reluctance to touch you without your express consent being signed in triplicate. You are both smart women and capable of relying on subtext. You giggle for her when she tickles your ear with her teeth, when she squeezes you tight in the best hug you’ve had in years.

 

* * *

 

“Go on, strip,” Rose is curled up under your comforter, looking snug as anything in the centre of your bed, and here you are, well past your prime and trying to not to embarrass yourself as you put on an elaborate parody of a sexy strip tease for her. Strangest thing is, the way she bites her lips and rakes her eyes over your slowly uncovered body makes you believe her appreciation of this might be a little less than ironic. Your shirt goes flying over to the laundry hamper and she straightens up, you can see her thighs squirming when you pop your bra open and as you let it fall to the ground.

You realise, unfortunately, that while your skinny white jeans are absolutely perf for rocking around the house on a weekend, there is no cool way you can conceive to get them off while standing up. Seeing no other option, you flop down on the bed, to her excited giggling, and make a show of kicking your legs in the air and doing your best sexy wiggle as you squeeze the pants over your hips and up and off you entirely. This leaves you in just your lacy pink underthings that you were quite certain another human being would never get to see as you straddle her legs over the comforter and position yourself on top of her. She hides the lower half of her face with the blanket, but her blush goes all the way up to her eyes, brilliant and bright. You kiss her cheek and her nose and her brow, rabid fire affection that she tries to wriggle away from playfully before shedding the blanket in favour of launching herself up to your lips.

 

* * *

 

Roxy snuggles in under the blankets with you, still kissing you everywhere but your mouth, so soft and teasing. You try to pin her down and score yourself another brush of her lips before she darts away to nip at your jaw and your neck. She laughs, breathless and hot against your skin, as your hands explore her newly uncovered body. Her skin feels soft, but so much different to your own, never like it’s stretched over too much person, always exactly right for her contours. Your fingers brush over stretch marks on her thighs and hips, tracing the jagged lines around her to cup her rear, sliding your hand underneath those gorgeously gaudy pink panties to squeeze her and pull her hips into you.

“Is it—” Roxy hesitates with her lips still on your neck. “I haven’t done this in a long time, is it okay if we go slow? What would you like me to do?”

You have to think about that one for a moment. You’re not exactly sitting on a mountain of good sexual experience to compare with. “This is going to sound a little weird,” you offer, “but how about we both just handle ourselves to start with and then once we figure out a rhythm we help each other out?”

She shivers against you at the suggestion, and you can feel her heat all over your body. “Yeah, yeah that actually sounds amazing.” You both shuffle for a bit, getting comfortable. This bed might as well be made of clouds it’s so soft, you worry if you don’t pay attention you’re going to sink straight through it. Fortunately Roxy still holds you up, with her right arm curling around the back of your shoulders, an intimate line of contact supporting you from below. You feel the back of her left hand brushing against your thigh, she’s lying on her side to face you while you lie on your back in her lazy half-embrace. Her hand rubs up and down, caressing you as she rubs herself gently. You imagine her fingers, below the covers, twirling idly through the soft tufts of her hair, diving deeper to brush over her lips before lifting up to drag lightly over her center. The fantasy of her is enough to get you started, even as you feel the bare breast of the real thing warm against your shoulder.

You grope your chest rougher than you ever let anyone else touch you and pinch your nipple between thumb and forefinger. You think you must make a face as well, because Roxy grins even wider at you and you feel a little jerk as the hand against your thigh pulls up harder than before. You put pressure into your mound with the heel of your hand, tracing around the inside of your thighs with the tips of your fingers. You’re not in a hurry tonight, not in some shitty gas station bathroom trying to make use of five minutes of privacy. You are going to enjoy yourself. Your two middle fingers curl up to stroke gently all the way up your labia, pulling off just before they’d put pressure on your clit. This is where you’d normally close your eyes, drift off into a world of fantasy. Instead, you look at Roxy. You watch the way she bites her lip, the little gasps she takes as she drinks you in wholesale, sight and sound and heat and smell. You feel her start to rock her hips into her hand, ostensibly humping your leg like a beloved family dog. You smile for her, and part her thighs with your leg. Instantly she wraps around you and you’re pinned as she grinds into you.

You don’t know how to describe the sounds she makes, not quite a squeak, not quite a moan. They come piping up out of her throat like she can’t stop them, like this couldn’t be a show if she wanted it to be. You enter yourself with your right hand as you bring your left up to hold her face. She’s all too eager to lean into your touch, to be pulled in towards you so that you can kiss her as you stroke deeper and deeper into yourself, still clean from the bath but slick now with your own arousal. She makes more of her squeaky moans against your mouth, rutting harder on your thigh as you hold her, pull her into you. You bite her lip less gently than you intend to and she squeals ecstasy for you.

 

* * *

 

You are pent up energy to her exhausted relaxation and when you peak it unstrings you completely. A distant part of you wants to be embarrassed that you came so easily, so soon, and certainly before your guest but fuck it, you _needed_ this. She’s still holding your lip between her teeth and laughing as you writhe against her leg, something about being held, your presence tacitly demanded, it adds a layer of joy to the whole experience that you can feel in the warm pit of your stomach. You glow with the pleasure she gives.

Rose seems to only make noises when she wants to, save for the very occasional, almost surprised “oh,” she lets loose as she touches herself in just the right way. Your needs filled, at least one of them, you turn your attention to supporting her, letting your now-free hand caress up the inside of her thigh, or escaping her kiss to nip and suckle at her jaw and throat.

“Roxy,” she moans for you, you know it’s for you, “Roxy this is nice, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to come tonight.” You’d be lying if you pretended your heart didn’t drop a little at that, but this is probably her first night in a decent bed in a long time, you’re not surprised she’s too tired for an olympic marathon of sexytimes right off the bat. Maybe if you can convince her to stay a night or two more you’ll get a chance to show off your champion tongue-wagging. “Is it alright if we stick a pin in this heavy petting party for now?” For now, she says, implying a later.

“Okay, yeah, if that’s what you’d like then of course. Ain’t no reason we can’t pick this up where we left off when you’re a little more rested.”

She gives you this sad smile, like maybe you said something you didn’t realise was depressing and leans in to kiss you again, deeper than before, almost as intimate as your first kiss. When you break apart, her eyes are less readable, though you see some of the sadness is gone. If you thought a couple of good kisses were all she needed in this world to be less sad, you’d probably quit your job and become a full-time Rose-smoocher. She stares into your eyes, gaze flicking back and forth in quick saccades as she looks at both of your eyes in turn, searching for something, you think, or maybe just ruminating on what she’s getting herself into by staying the night with you. Only good things, you hope.

Deftly, she reaches past your ear and switches off the light. In the darkness that follows, though you can’t see her, you know she’s still looking at you, waiting for some signal that this is either exactly what she fears it might be or, improbably, exactly what it looks like. You lean in to brush a last kiss goodnight against her lips and hope she realises soon that it’s the latter. For what it’s worth in the complete darkness, you close your eyes when you kiss her.

Satisfied, regardless of the conclusion she’s reached, Rose eventually rolls over in your arms and snuggles herself into your embrace. Her breathing slows down, minute by minute, as she drifts off to sleep.

 

* * *

 

When you wake up, you’re still in her bed. You aren’t tied to anything, you feel like you have both kidneys and your head is noticeably absent of the after-effects of any intellectually compromising substances. Outside, sunlight is peaking through the trees to light on the snow covered ground of the adirondack mountainside you’ve found yourself in. Roxy’s bed is warm, and occupied by the woman herself, sleeping fitfully beside you. There’s no other possibilities then. Last night was in fact a genuine, real, unironic _wonderful_ experience that you’re going to cherish for the rest of your life.

You try not to disturb the bed as you slip out, nabbing a too-large dressing gown off a hook on the door to stave off the cold. Roxy’s wallet and phone sit on her chest of drawers, where she’d discarded them earlier. Standing in front of them you dimly realise that this is exactly where you were standing when you met her. You ignore the phone in favour of rifling through her wallet. Cards from a few banks, all of them able to be cancelled with a quick phone call or online. Not much in the way of cash, but you pocket what you find, a blockbuster member card _what the fuck_ and her driver’s license. Hmm, “Roxy Lalonde,” she gave you her real name. Born a fuckload of years before you, though going by this photo she hasn’t really aged at all in the last ten, she shares your birthday and those weird eyes are her natural colour, not some kind of contact lense like you first thought.

Roxy Lalonde. It’s a good name. You kind of got over your last name some time in late high school, about the point people starting seeing through the cool girl facade and realised that growing up in an abusive household meant you couldn’t have sleepovers, and a snarky inability to express sincere emotions made you unbearable company. You check over at Roxy, still sleeping in bed. As fucked up as it is to think after sleeping with her, she would’ve been a better guardian than Bro. Maybe running off first thing in the morning isn’t strictly necessary. You could always run off at midday instead, when it’s warmer, and after you’ve conned her into making you breakfast. Though really if you’re sticking around until midday it would be rude not to stay for lunch. Wouldn’t want to be rude now, would we?

You let your stolen dressing gown pool around your ankles and slip back under the covers, scooting up close to Roxy’s heat. She sleepily opens her eyes at your disturbance, smiles, then lets them drift back closed. You smile too, it feels impossible to get it off your face. You are ruining your angsty goth cred over this older woman because looking at her makes it impossible to stop smiling all the goddamn time. You might stay for dinner.

Rose Lalonde, it occurs to you, would be a very good name.

**Author's Note:**

> Born with a void, hard to destroy with love or hope  
> Built with a heart, broken from the start  
> And now I die slow  
> \- Valley of the Dolls - Marina and the Diamonds


End file.
